Turns out Miss New Zealand isn’t actually from New Zealand

Avianca Bohm, who won the Miss New Zealand crown this past Saturday, was born in South Africa, a fact the pageant organizers were aware of. According to theNew Zealand Herald, pageant director Val Lott permitted Bohm to compete because it would be “confidence-boosting” for both Bohm and her local area of New Zealand. But the condition was that she didn’t win.

“It’s not embarrassing for the competition. It’s embarrassing for the [chief] judge, who should have taken on board what I said to him,” Lott told the New Zealand Herald. “It says that in their entry form. [Ms Bohm] and I both had a clear understanding that she couldn’t win.”

Which strikes us as strange because, well, how can someone be qualified to compete if she’s not qualified to win? Not to mention that deciding in advance who won’t win rigs the competition, albeit in the opposite direction than usual.